The Capitals today claimed veteran forward Marco Sturm off waivers from the LA Kings. Sturm is 32 years old and in his 14th NHL Season. He is mainly a left winger, but has played both wings and has 4 goals, 5 assists in 17 games with the Kings this season. Sturm is coming back from offseason knee surgery after tearing his ACL and MCL in his right knee during last seasons playoffs for the Boston Bruins. During the 2008-2009 season he tore ligaments in his left knee after only 19 games for the Bruins and missed the rest of the season.

Before the injury last season, Sturm had 22 goals and 15 assists in 76 regular season games. He still isn’t fully recovered and this could just be the beginning of moves for the Capitals before the February 28th, 3 pm eastern deadline. Sturm is in the last year of a 3.5 million dollar deal and is an unrestricted free agent following this season.

On December 11th, 2010, Sturm was traded from the Bruins to the Kings for “future considerations” after not playing a game for the Bruins this season. Sturm isn’t expected to be in the lineup tonight for the Capitals as they are on a quick one game road trip playing the New York Islanders.

In other news,the Caps put forward DJ King on waivers today, Caps center Mathieu Perreault was sent to Hershey, forward Jay Beagle and goalie Todd Ford were called up from Hershey, goalie Semyon Varlamov is day to day with an undisclosed injury & defenseman Mike Green is in Calgary due to the death of his grandmother. Green wasn’t going to play tonight anyways after getting hit in the head last night after missing the previous 6 of 7 games after taking a puck to the head.

Sky Kerstein is 106.7 The FAN’s Capitals Beat Reporter and a fill-in co-host. Also you can find video recaps of every Caps game and post-game interviews on www.1067thefandc.com. You can get in touch with Sky on Facebook or via Twitter at www.twitter.com/SkyKerstein.